Oracle 11g SQL loader, time format issue

Question

I am trying to load a .csv file using SQL loader. I get this error message on a column that should store time column:

column TIME.ORA-01843: not a valid month

In my .csv file time has the format HH:MM:SS but I can't understand why Oracle does not recognise it.

Using the command select * from nls_session_parameters; I see that the default time format is HH24.MI.SSXFF. I tried to change the time separator in my csv file but I got the same error result.

I have a very simple control file, that looks like below.

LOAD DATA
INFILE Cycling_Accidents0512.csv
INTO TABLE CYCLING_ACCIDENTS
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','

(ID,
ACC_ID,
OSGB_EASTING,
OSGB_NORTHING,
WGS_LONG,
WGS_LAT,
POLICE_FORCE,
ACC_SEVERITY,
NUM_VEI,
NUM_CAS,
ACC_DATE,
DAY_WEEK,
TIME,
LOC_AUTH_DIS,
LOC_AUTH_HIGH,
FST_ROAD_CLASS,
FST_ROAD_NUMBER,
ROAD_TYPE,
SPEED_LIMIT,
JUNCT_DETAIL,
JUNCT_CONTROL,
SND_ROAD_CLASS,
SND_ROAD_NUM,
PED_HUM,
PED_PHY,
LIGHT_COND,
WEATH_COND,
ROAD_SUR_COND,
SPEC_COND,
CARR_HAZARDS,
URB_RUR,
POLICE_ATT,
LSOA_ACC_LOC,
VEI_TYPE)

If someone of you can help me to modify the control file in order to make the time format acceptable to Oracle, that would be appreciated. I tried to look up on other web resources but I haven't found anything that could help.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You mentioned querying the session NLS parameters, but the value you showed appears to be NLS_TIME_FORMAT, which is only used internally.

Oracle doesn't have a time-only type, so your field is presumably actually a DATE type (or possibly TIMESTAMP). The values in the column will have a date part, even if you ignore it.

SQL*Loader will use NLS_DATE_FORMAT to interpret the data file value for a DATE field. If that is DD/MM/YYYY then it would liberally interpret a value like 22:41:17 as the 22nd day of the 41st month - hence your error - in the year 17.

You can specify the date format model in the control file:

TIME DATE 'HH24:MI:SS',

The value in the table would have that time, on the first day of the current month.

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The SQL*Loader documentation does refer to a TIME data type which I have never seen used, and I can't find any references to it anywhere, including MOS. A quick bit of experimentation hasn't helped. If I make the control file entry:

TIME TIME,

... then the record is rejected with ORA-00933: SQL command not properly ended. The log file also shows the data type as DATETIME HH24.MI.SSXFF, which looks related to the NLS_TIME_FORMAT value. I haven't found a way to make it accept that. If I change the column definition from DATE to TIMESTAMP then I get a different error, ORA-00904: "TO_TIME": invalid identifier, which is even stranger. It almost looks like these data types are defined in SQL*Loader for future use. (This discussion suggests they thought about adding TIME as a database type in 10g, but obviously can't verify that. And this is in the SQL*Loader reference at least back to 9i).